Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy, 1400-1600

by Evelyn Welch

Shopping was as important in the Renaissance as it is today. This fascinating and original book breaks new ground in the area of Renaissance material culture, focusing on the marketplace and such related topics as middle-class to courtly consumption, the provision of foodstuffs, and the acquisition of antiquities and holy relics. The book investigates how men and women of different social classes went to the streets, squares, and shops to buy goods they needed and wanted on a daily—or a once-in-a-lifetime—basis, during the Renaissance period. Evelyn Welch draws on wide-ranging sources to expose the fears, anxieties, and social possibilities of the Renaissance marketplace and to show the impact of these attitudes on developing urban spaces. She considers transient forms of sales such as fairs, auctions, and lotteries as well as consumers themselves. Finally, she explores antiquities and indulgences, both of which posed dramatic challenges to contemporary notions of market value and to the concept of commodification itself.

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Anthropology, Art

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2005

About the author

Evelyn Welch (b. 1959) was Chair of the Association of Art Historians from 2007-2011. A scholar of early modern European visual and material culture, she served as a member of the Executive Committee from 2000-2006 before becoming Chair of the Association in 2007.

She gained her PhD in Combined Historical Studies from The Warburg Institute, University of London in 1987, and BA in Renaissance History and Literature at Harvard University in 1981. Currently Professor of Renaissance Studies Vice-Principal for Research and International Affairs at Queen Mary, University of London, Evelyn Welch was previously Pro-Vice Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) at the University of Sussex. She is also the director of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s programme, Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images, Objects.

Reviews

[Jeff]

As a person who above all else values and enjoys the human aspects of history — not the study of big ‘isms’ or the determinist ‘it-would-all-have-happened-anyway’ approach to the past, but rather the stories of individual lives and daily existence — I was totally enchanted by this book.

The author poses and then goes on to answer a host of fascinating questions (backed up by beautiful & unusual illustrations). How, 500 years ago, did townspeople buy foodstuffs and basic necessities? How could the customer guard against being cheated? How, in an age when business hours were strictly regulated but accurate clocks were rare, did people manage to tell time? How did merchants and civic authorities try to prevent shoplifting and burglary? How did the rich physically acquire their costly luxury goods? (Yes, they were different, even then. In fact, the best chapter here, ‘Shopping With Isabella d’Este’ brilliantly depicts that imperious noblewoman bombarding her agents with shopping lists and detailed instructions for purchasing fine brocades, silks, jewels, and paintings — all at roughly the same value. The fabrics have been dust for centuries, the jewels were long ago broken up and sold untraceably, but her paintings are now priceless!) Welch illuminates these questions with dozens of human vignettes and incidents.

I realize this book is not necessarily for everyone — it’s as far from a novel as possible — but it gave me, as an amateur Renaissance scholar, hours of delight. And for those readers who enjoyed good historical fiction like Leonardo’s Swans (Karen Essex) and The Birth of Venus (Sarah Dunant) it might well serve as a perfect window into the reality of the period. This is academic social history as it should always be written.

-Alan

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shopping in the Renaissance from furnishing homes, stocking larders and wardrobes or buying antiques or indulgences -- an interesting insight to why/how they bought in Renaissance Italy.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is fairly dry and specialized, it is well researched and extensively documented (almost 100 pages of end notes and bibliography for 300 pages of text). Sections include everything from great merchants, guild members, to itinerant peddlers, weights and measures, currency, credit, commercial regulations (as well as social conventions involved in buying and selling)), calendars and timekeeping, market and festival days, commercial zoning, estates, lotteries, pawning items, and auctions. Shopping conventions (often based on class and/or gender). Household accounts (with some detailed examples from the Castellani and Priuli families (Florence and Venice, respectively) as well as Isabella d’Este (Ferrarra and Mantua). The book also deals briefly with the sale and collection of antiquities and religious relics (including a small section on indulgences). Most of the documentary evidence (and examples) are from Venice, Florence, Rome, and Milan, although many smaller cities and towns in Italy are also represented. 3.5 stars.

[Caitlyn]

8 hours of reading. I’m so tired 😭

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, full of primary source images, rich detail and scholarly attention to detail. I highly recommend it to persons interested in how life was lived in the past.

[Derek Lidow · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Going shopping” may seem like a relatively new development, but Evelyn Welch’s fascinating book makes it clear that this is a phenomenon that goes much further back than I ever would have guessed.

For anyone interested in how pleasure-seeking drives economic growth, rather than simple supply and demand, this book is for you.

Shopping in the Renaissance dives deep into the rise of materialism in the Renaissance and what that meant to European society’s emergence from the Dark Ages. Debates and hand-wringing at the time about fairs, auctions, antiquities, and indulgences reminded me a whole lot of the kinds of conversations we have today about mom-and-pop shops, malls, and Amazon. There are two reasons to read this book as an ambitious entrepreneur. One, it gives some comfort to know how predictable and constant human nature is. And if you're an entrepreneur (or aspiring entrepreneur), it is full of ideas you might be able to apply to your own modern business.

If you'd like to get my list of recommendations of the best books on entrepreneurship, email me here with RECOMMENDATIONS in the subject line.

[Amy Laverick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic introduction to renaissance consumer culture and the differences in how consumption works between classes and even genders.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gift from my dear SIL Iris, via an Amazon gift card. Thank you, Iris!

A bit slow going in places, but overall a fine read for the amateur Renaissance scholar. It was the little things that held my attention: there was a German craze for autograph books? Who knew? I could have done with less on the antiquities markets of 16th C. Rome, and more on how things like home furnishings were procured. A minor quibble, though. Quite enjoyed this.